The Shadowed Sun (Dreamblood) (54 page)

“I am Wanahomen.” He nodded toward the map, which seemed to be of Gujaareh’s streets, and stepped over to the table. “Since you’ve studied the situation, would you brief me?”

She eyed him sidelong before she tapped the map. “Our current plan. We thought to approach the city by the western gate, at sunset with the light at our backs and then darkness in our favor to foil their archers. Our agents in the city will attack the gate-guards from within, which will at least distract them so that we encounter a light defense and can raise ladders to breach the gates. At best, of course, there will be
no
resistance, and the gates will open for us to simply walk in.” She smiled thinly. “That’s when the true battle will begin.”

“For the palace.” She nodded.

“The Kisuati troops will fall back to Yanya-iyan,” said another man. Ghefir, Wanahomen’s memory supplied—a distant cousin of his mother’s lineage. He nodded to the man in silent acknowledgement, and Ghefir returned the nod. “An eightday ago, four Protectors arrived from Kisua to oversee the city. The Kisuati will fight to a man to protect them. That’s sure to be a hard battle, but it’s one we must win. Kisua will pay heavy ransom to get its elders back unharmed, since otherwise its own citizens will be up in arms. Taking them hostage may win this war.”

Wanahomen shook his head, examining the map. “No. Yanya-iyan is a bad target.”

Iezanem’s expression turned instantly derisive. “Is it? Should we aim here, instead?” She tapped the artisans’ district. “Or rescue the servant-castes first?”

“Servants, yes,” Wanahomen said. He ignored Iezanem’s sarcasm,
knowing it for what it was now. She was no different from the youngest men in his war troop, all of them terrified and desperate to prove themselves. Some covered their fear with belligerence; there was no harm in it, so long as they learned not to cross the line of his patience.

“Our goal should be the Hetawa,” he said. “Yanya-iyan is built to defend against attack. It has metal gates that cannot be climbed easily, doors we cannot batter quickly. Archers would pick us off as we came down any avenue toward it—the avenues are straight for that purpose—and in the narrower streets, chariots would ride out to finish off any survivors. Even if we laid siege, Yanya-iyan’s storerooms hold a village’s worth of grain and provisions. They could last long enough for reinforcements to arrive from Kisua.”

Ghefir frowned. “But the Protectors—”

“Must be taken, yes—that I agree with. But there are other ways to take them. Yanya-iyan’s great weakness is its size, and its many entrances. To defend a gate against an army is easy, but to defend every garden door, every servant-entrance, every inch of every wall, against solitary infiltrators? Much harder.”

Ghefir’s eyes widened. “Assassins? You want to
kill
them?” He sounded horrified, and rightly so. Wanahomen himself was still Gujaareen enough to balk at killing elders—though he meant to do it, and worse, if that was the way to victory.

“No.” Wanahomen tapped the Hetawa district again, his finger stopping on the Hetawa itself. “I was thinking of a different sort of infiltrator.”

But Deti-arah was shaking his head. “You haven’t heard, then. The Kisuati took the Gatherers hostage almost an eightday ago. They’re being kept in Yanya-iyan.”

“They’re—” Wanahomen stared at him, then began to grin. He could not help it. “Damn, what an opportunity.”

“Opportunity?”

“Yes!” Wanahomen leaned across the table to make his point; Iezanem drew back, as if repelled by his excitement. “One distraction, one slip in the Kisuati’s guard, and the Gatherers will be free.
Inside
Yanya-iyan. We should do everything we can to facilitate that—and we will definitely need the other priests’ aid, in that case. They can speak to one another through dreams.” He frowned, contemplative. “That alone would be valuable, if they can help us coordinate our efforts. But most importantly, the people will rally around the Hetawa. The Kisuati can fight an army, but not a whole city.”

Iezanem’s expression worked from surprise through consternation toward grudging acknowledgement. “The Hetawa does have symbolic value,” she said at last. “It would also make a good base of operations, if the Servants allow.” She glanced at Wanahomen, her expression turning cool. “Would they?”

“I believe so.” He met her gaze, understanding then that they knew of his alliance with the Hetawa. Good; let them reckon with that too, if they planned to betray him. “They’ve pledged to do whatever is necessary to swiftly return Gujaareh to peace. If that means burning Yanya-iyan to the ground along with every Kisuati inside, then I believe they would do it.”

Silence fell for a moment as they absorbed that.

“Yes,” said another man, who had not been introduced and had the look of a merchant; he was looking at Wanahomen, nodding, his eyes alight. “Yes.”

“Dreamer-on-high,” said Ghefir at last. “I begin to think this may actually work.” The words broke the tension of the moment; several of the assembled nobles laughed nervously.

“Then there’s one more greater matter to be settled, before we tackle the endless smaller ones.” Wanahomen looked at Deti-arah, Ghefir, and Iezanem. Sanfi was not present; Wanahomen did not allow himself to speculate about that. “No army can be run by
council, however esteemed. And the Banbarra will follow no Gujaareen but me.”

There was silence for a moment longer, and then Deti-arah gave him a slow nod.

“None of us, save Iezanem, are warriors,” he said. “We’ve always known there would be power in having you at our head.” He looked then at Iezanem.

Iezanem looked as though she wanted to dispute this, but when Wanahomen turned a hard gaze on her, she sighed. “We will follow your command,” she said. Ghefir nodded vigorously in agreement.

A deep sense of readiness settled over Wanahomen. This was what he had awaited for ten years. This was what his Goddess intended. He surprised himself abruptly by wishing that Hanani were present. She too knew the power of Hananja’s blessings. It would have been nice to share this moment of peace with her.

And then it would have been dangerously, temptingly easy to seek out her tent later that night in the followers’ area. Not for lovemaking, not on the eve of battle—but he also enjoyed the simple comfort of talking to a woman, and perhaps sharing his dreams with her. Still, he had made his farewells three nights before in Merik-ren-aferu, and speaking to Hanani again would only be awkward for them both. She knew it too, he understood, for she had not tried to see him since that night.

“So be it, then,” he said to the assembled nobles. “We march in the morning. Moons willing and dreams sweet, Gujaareh will be ours again soon.”

With that said, they gathered ’round the table and spent the next few hours in planning.

On the fourth day of the new year, the sunset brought great change to Gujaareh.

The battle began with a late-afternoon rumor, which quickly grew to an alarm. A dust trail had been spotted against the horizon, diminishing rather than growing with nearness, and it eventually became an army passing from the dusty foothills into the wetter greenlands, then coming along the irrigation roads toward the city. It would arrive in hours. Kisuati units that had been dispersed throughout the city to keep the peace quickly responded as runners brought new orders from Yanya-iyan. Some went to the walls in defense; others prepared to defend the defenders, aware that the city presented a greater danger than the army outside. Still others went to Yanya-iyan, there to marshal their forces for the biggest battle of all.

As the rumors became confirmed reports, the citizens of Gujaareh came into the streets, gathering in markets and parks and dancing squares. Many had brought weapons or tools that could serve as weapons; most had brought nothing other than their anger. This proved formidable enough as the Kisuati soldiers retreated.
Those soldiers who were unlucky or too slow found themselves surrounded by crowds of citizens who only a month before would have been easily cowed. Now those same crowds beat men to death, or tore them to pieces and carried the bloody bits through the streets as trophies. The same fate awaited any Kisuati civilians who had not seen the warning signs and fled ahead of time. Merchant-shops were looted. Several traders’ homes burned with women, children, and slaves still inside. Gujaareen citizens fell as well, mostly to the swords and knives and arrows of the soldiers, but there were many, many more of them than there were of the Kisuati, and for every Gujaareen who died, another four came to fight in his or her place.

And among the angry crowds moved those who had been waiting for exactly this circumstance. On the steps of the Hetawa, Teachers preached to cheering crowds and exhorted them to be as swift and decisive as Gatherers in their violence, and to not prolong their enemies’ suffering more than necessary. At the western gate, military-caste warriors in the garb of ordinary citizens attacked the Kisuati, encouraging screaming mobs to overrun defensive positions. Lending quiet but decisive support, the Sisters of Hananja shot Kisuati archers from shop entryways and timbalin cupolas. Their Hetawa brethren of the Sentinel path ambushed and disarmed reinforcements from within alley shadows, preventing the Kisuati from forming any effective defense. They also saved the now-helpless survivors of these ambushes from the mobs when they could, though that was not always possible. The people of Gujaareh were too angry, and there was not much peace in their hearts.

As darkness came and the streets smoldered, the last of the gate defenders fell to a cluster of barely pubescent boys armed with bricks and shards of broken pottery. The gates were immediately opened, and less than an hour later the first of three thousand saviors began riding into the city. The vanguard was comprised of fierce barbarians in pale desert robes, who brandished shining swords and let
loose arcing victory cries as they spread throughout the streets. These cries were swiftly drowned out by cheers from the Gujaareen themselves, as the barbarians’ leader rode through and the word spread that here, at last, was Hananja’s Avatar. Gujaareh’s long-lost Prince: a handsome, noble-looking young man carrying the sword of the Morning Sun.

He stopped his horse in the center of a packed market, gazed around at the crowd that watched him with pent breath, and said four words that traveled through every street and neighborhood with the speed of dreams.

“I have come home.”

*  *  *

In the same moment, on the eastern side of the city, Teacher Yehamwy stood on one of the Hetawa’s wall walkways with Sentinel Anarim and two other members of the Council of Paths, watching the smoke and firelight from the west draw closer.

“This is getting out of hand,” Anarim said.

“As chaos does,” said Ni-imeh of the Sisters. She and others of her order—those not fighting—had come into the Hetawa for shelter at the first word of trouble. “You believe the Prince will come here first?”

“That was the suggestion sent into his dreams,” said Yehamwy. “Nothing can be certain, of course, without the control of dreamblood.” He glanced at Sharer Anakhemat, who nodded wearily.

“We can’t say until he arrives on our doorstep, and even then we may never know if the decision was the result of our influence or his own wishes,” said the Sharer. “His dreaming has become sharper lately; we had to be subtle. Distance-narcomancy is always difficult. And no one has had time to travel to the borders to reinforce it, not in several days.”

Ni-imeh nodded. “We must be content with that, then. If he’s not
seen to seek our blessing in restoring his rule, the rift between Hetawa and Yanya-iyan may never heal.”

“Is there any word from the searchers?” asked Yehamwy.

Anarim answered. “They tracked down five motherlines before this whole business began.” He nodded toward the glowing horizon. “Several women and girls have been found with considerable untrained dreaming gifts; only one had seen visions or showed signs of losing control. But even her power was nothing that could explain the plague.” He grimaced. “Unfortunately, with so much chaos in the city, the remaining searches will be delayed.”

“Would it help if we aided your efforts?” Ni-imeh asked. “The House of the Sisters has been relatively unscathed by these nightmares. Those of our members and apprentices who have the necessary narcomantic skill can travel in disguise, for the sake of safety.”

Yehamwy and Anarim looked at each other in surprise. Ni-imeh’s lips thinned in faint irritation. “Just because
you
have only now realized the potential of women does not mean that
we
have been fools all this time.”